Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

As a keen - but largely unsuccessful - punter that has a number of very small bets on the horses each week using his online TAB account, Sideline Sid receives a number of promotional emails from the TAB.

Many of the emails enlist the help of "experts" who give out their tips to punting success. Receiving the TAB promotional messages, sometimes recalls the words that someone told me many years ago "Did you hear about the bloke who won small fortune one the horses - he started with a very big one".

The latest offering from the TAB invited punters to enter a free Football World Cup tipping competition, with five million dollars up for grabs.

All you have to do is pick the correct result of all 64 games played in Russia during June and July. My response is read the Tui Ad - Yeah Right.

The TAB will cover themselves with short-term insurance cover in the in case a punter achieves the almost impossible mission.

However, it's a great marketing tool to highlight and boost TAB betting on one of the world's greatest sporting tournaments, with a 500 consultation prizes of $100 betting vouchers.

A number of sports in New Zealand benefit from authorizing TAB betting on their codes.

Boxing New Zealand, received a handsome payout when David Tua took on Lennox Lewis, for the World Heavyweight title in 2000.

The sport has continued to benefit from the Joseph Parker bouts, with the monies received assisting the grassroots sport of amateur boxing - which struggles for national funding.

Sideline Sid was thrilled to hear about the recent formation of the Tauranga Boxing Academy.

The new boxing academy's stated primary aim is to develop underachieving youth in the Western Bay of Plenty through the principles and motivation that come from the sport of boxing.

The objective is not to teach young people to fight, but rather to instil the values of the sport.

Respect is the key driver for young people starting out in the gym, with participants expected to show consideration for their coaches and fellow gym attendees.

As the weeks go by, other values that emerge are motivation, turning up on time, fitness, self worth and a pathway to becoming a good citizen in the local community.

The Tauranga Boxing Academy is modelled on the same lines as the highly successful Naenae Boxing Academy in the Hutt Valley.

Run by the irrepressible Billy Graham, the Naenae youth academy has turned around the lives of many Hutt Valley young men and women in the last decade.

No better example of a life turned around by boxing is shown, than by Billy Graham.

A self described scallywag as a youngster, Billy's life was changed forever when he came under the wing of legendary New Zealand boxing trainer Dick Dunn.

The Hutt Valley boxing mentor, had old fashioned values that went back to his time as a boxer in the 1920's.

Billy Graham went on to great heights in the ring, winning four senior national titles and taking out the rare double of the Jameson Belt and the Bill O'Connor Cup awarded to the youngest senior titleholder.

During 1967, Billy won the Australasian Light Welterweight title to join an elite band of kiwi boxers who have won a combined New Zealand and Australia boxing crown.

Fifty odd years later, Billy Graham stills lives by the values instilled in him by Dick Dunn in the Railways boxing gymnasium.